The Story:
On Wednesday of last week, IBM and Twitter announced a "landmark partnership" in which IBM's software and services will have access to and make sense of Twitter's gigantic vats of data.
The decision comes on the heels of Twitter's acquisition of social data company, Gnip, and is designed to help enterprise businesses leverage Twitter's data supply.
Wait, Back Up. What Exactly Are They Trying to Do?
In a nutshell, IBM is going to translate Twitter's one billion daily new records into information enterprise businesses can use.
IBM will play an important role, because the billion daily records come from raw user-generated thoughts, opinions, facts, and statistics that represent 284 million voices from around the world. In effect, Twitter is recording a new kind of "people's history" that isn't just written by well-educated and formally published authors, but by everyday people.
However, there's simply too much for businesses to sift through.
IBM is making it possible to harness the power of this big data system to inform key business decisions.
"Twitter provides a powerful new lens through which to look at the world-as both a platform for hundreds of millions of consumers and business professionals, and as a synthesizer of trends," said Ginni Rometty, IBM Chairman, President and CEO. "This partnership, drawing on IBM's leading cloud-based analytics platform, will help clients enrich business decisions with an entirely new class of data. This is the latest example of how IBM is reimagining work."
In fact, Chris Moody, VP of Data Strategy at Twitter, said at the #IBMInsight conference that he believes all business decisions will include Twitter data.
The new alliance will allow IBM's powerful existing analytics infrastructure-including 15,000 analytics consultants, 4,000 analytics patents, 6,000 industry solution business partners, 400 IBM mathematicians, and the famous computer Watson-to access Twitter data for input on multivariable, pattern-dependent questions like:
What do customers like best about my products?
Why are we growing quickly in Brazil?
Who do my customers trust for referrals?
Business leaders with access to the platform can then make informed, data-backed decisions.
So What Does This Mean for Marketers?
Well, if you take IBM's word for it, the forged alliance will "transform how businesses and institutions understand their customers, markets and trends-and inform every business decision."
The public's word sounds a little different. Immediately following the announcement, both Twitter and IBM shares fell, suggesting some doubts.
In our opinion at Kapost, the move is another example of an already emerging trend: Enterprises are rushing to get ahead of how to best use big data and analytics to make their businesses grow faster and return greater profits.
Specifically the alliance is proposed to do these things for marketers:
Provide a better understanding of which marketing tactics work and which do not. (Isn't this the Holy Grail!?) The IBM-Twitter solution will integrate Twitter data with IBM ExperienceOne customer engagement solutions to map user sentiment and behavior to sales and marketing operations, giving marketers a better idea of the tactics and channels they should continue to invest in and which they should drop.
Provide unique insights into industry-specific data to understand new market opportunities and partnerships. The globalized Twitter data will inform perspectives on voids in the market, potentially identify needs and opportunities in specific markets, and reveal potential strategic partnerships.
There is incalculable value in big data, and marketers are chomping at the bit to discover the best process for leveraging its potential. But there hasn't been a fully baked solution, yet.
The good news is that, unlike any era before now, literally anyone can "vote" or "voice" their opinions about private and public products in a way that makes a difference. As more companies adopt a larger and statistically sound "social listening" strategy, users and buyers become increasingly instrumental in shaping products.
For example, if for a month people in the United States wrote to Coca-Cola on Twitter about wanting real-sugar soft drinks available in the contiguous 48, I would put $100 that Coke would make an adjustment to their product in this country.
Or, on the other hand, if there is a global cry for a new exercise app, you'd better believe some bootstrapping entrepreneur will jump on the opportunity to develop that app, especially with proven market demand to back it up.
The IBM-Twitter alliance meets a huge need for the business world at large. There aren't enough people skilled at big analytics for every business to have an in-house data cruncher. In fact, in 2012 Gartner's head of research, Peter Sondergaard, specifically noted a serious shortage of IT professionals with big-data skills, and guessed that only ⅓ of the jobs available for that type of work would be filled. Meanwhile, the Bureau of Labor and Statistics forecasted data analyst jobs to grow 32% from 2012 to 2022, much faster than the average for all occupations, driven by "an increased use of data and market research across all industries, to understand the needs and wants of customers, and to measure the effectiveness of marketing and business strategies."
Perhaps by operationalizing big data translation, IBM will shrink the major gap between the demand and supply for this type of professional, making it easier for companies to access and analyze big data.
Any way you cut it, one thing is clear: Twitter and IBM just said their vows.
Marketers, buckle in and get ready for the ripples this kind of marriage always sends through our strategies.
For more information regarding the new Twitter and IBM collaboration, visit www.ibm.com/IBMandTwitter or https://blog.twitter.com/ibm, or follow the conversation at #IBMandTwitter.
To learn how to use Twitter and its new features, I recommend reading this visual whitepaper.